CHAPTER 27
Anxious to understand the influence of Wales on this period in history better, I took my family on holiday to Tenby and used this as a springboard for investigating the rest of Pembrokeshire. While there, we visited Pembroke Castle. A huge complex of buildings, it still dominates the surrounding town as it has done ever since the Norman invasion of c. 1092. A guide showed us the room where Henry VII was born. It was a sad story, for in November 1456, his father, Edmund Tudor, died in captivity leaving his wife, Margaret Beaufort, heavily pregnant. The following January, she gave birth to their only son, Henry. To help visitors visualize the scene, the local tourist board had thoughtfully provided a tableau of wax models in period dress. They looked authentic enough, but what these mannequins couldn’t convey was the fear that must have gripped Henry’s mother who was then herself only 14 years old. Because of her age and small size it was, by all accounts, a difficult birth that nearly killed both mother and child. It must have been cold, too. For although there was a fireplace in the room, it was the middle of January, and in those days there was no central heating. For poor Henry it was an inauspicious start to what would one day prove to be a most remarkable life.
In 1461, Owen Tudor, was at the head of a largely Welsh army with his younger son Jasper by his side. Their aim was to join up with the main body of Lancastrian forces further north. However, before they could link up, they were confronted and defeated at Mortimer’s Cross. Jasper escaped back to Wales, but Owen was captured. Then, in revenge for the beheading of the previous Duke of York, he was taken to Hereford by the Yorkists and was himself beheaded.
With Owen’s eldest son, Edmund Tudor, already dead, the hopes of the Tudor family lay with the second son, Jasper Tudor, and Edmund’s little son, Henry. Jasper Tudor escaped to France, but Henry and his mother Margaret were still lodged at Pembroke Castle when, in 1461, it was captured by Wales’ pre-eminent Yorkist, William Herbert. He now became the boy’s gaoler, although, in reality, he was more like a stepfather. Being Welsh, the old man understood well the value of the boy’s bloodlines and that he was not only descended from the royal houses of both France and England, but, like himself, was also a scion of the ancient Kings of Britain from before the Anglo-Saxon invasions. Cadwallader, the last native King to claim rulership over the entire island of Britain, died in Rome in AD 689. However, because of the Rhys ap Tewdwr lineage, Henry Tudor could legitimately claim descent from him. Through his own mother Gwladys, the ‘Star of Abergavenny’, Sir William Herbert was also descended from Rhys ap Tewdwr, although without the added bonus of being a scion of the royal houses of England and France, too. Thus, little Henry Tudor was both a distant relative of the Herberts and a very valuable heir. Sir William Herbert intended to capitalize on this.
The young boy was mostly housed at Raglan Castle, where he was schooled according to Welsh traditions. Henry, though still a boy, was central to William Herbert’s plans for a Welsh Renaissance. In fact, he was groomed so that one day he would marry one of the Earl’s daughters. With access to the great library, Henry was in a position to read many of the books that were later burnt by the Parliamentarians of Cromwell’s times. He would also have witnessed Herbert’s gatherings of the bards, the poets of Wales who kept old traditions alive. For them, lack of pen and paper was not an imposition but a positive stimulus to hone their traditions of memorizing verses known as triads. It is very likely that Henry was encouraged to learn at least some of the triads, too, many of which were nationalist in character. Thus, although he was a Lancastrian, he grew up like no other. Immersed in Welsh cultural assumptions, he was being prepared to take over from William Herbert to be what was effectively the real Prince of Wales.
In 1469, the rules of the game changed more than anyone at the time could have imagined. Richard Neville, the ‘kingmaker’ Earl of Warwick, fell out with the Yorkists and changed sides. A major battle was fought at Edgecote, and this time the Lancastrians were victorious. On Warwick’s orders, Sir William Herbert (recently awarded the title of Earl of Pembroke) and his brother Richard were both beheaded. Warwick restored Henry VI to the throne; his nephew, Henry Tudor, was returned to the custody of his uncle Jasper, who was given back his lands and his earlier title of Earl of Pembroke.
This Lancastrian restoration did not last long. In March 1470, the Yorkists again defeated the Lancastrians, putting Edward IV back in charge. This time, however, Henry Tudor, now a teenager, was able to escape with his uncle to Brittany. Shortly afterwards, Edward’s rival, Henry VI, died in the Tower of London, and, as we have discussed already, in 1471 the latter’s only son, Edward Prince of Wales, was slaughtered in the aftermath of the Battle of Tewkesbury. This left Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, as the principal surviving Lancastrian contender for the throne.
In contrast to the weedy, effete and at times even insane Henry VI, Edward IV, tall, handsome and brave in battle, was a popular ruler. Nevertheless, by the end of his reign, he had grown fat and debauched. Few mourned his passing in 1483, expecting that he would be succeeded by his eldest son, Edward V. This was not to be. Still only boys, he and his brother Richard, Duke of York, were taken from their mother’s custody and for their ‘safety’ lodged in the Tower of London. Neither were ever seen again, their uncle, Richard III usurping the crown for himself. This was a disastrous start to what was to prove a very short reign. Few people liked or wanted Richard as King so that when Henry Tudor, now a mature man of 28, landed in Wales, people flocked to his banner. At the subsequent Battle of Bosworth fought on 22 August 1485, Richard was slain, and Henry Tudor, Duke of Richmond, became King Henry VII.
This, as it turned out, was the start of not just a new reign but of an entirely new dynasty. Prior to Bosworth, Henry had little or no experience of battle, sensibly putting his army under the command of the Earl of Oxford. However, he was highly intelligent and, like Edward IV before him, had a good grasp of how to use symbolism to aid his cause. The banner under which he fought at Bosworth (and which was later brought to St Paul’s Cathedral in London) was emblazoned with neither the arms of his ancestor Ednyfed Fychan – the three helmeted heads on a red background – nor the more recent arms of his own father, Edmund Tudor – the arms of England and France quartered inside a bordure of alternating gold fleur-de-lys and martlets on a blue background. Rather, he adopted a banner with a red dragon (draig goch) emblazoned over a field of white and green. This banner, now the flag of Wales itself, symbolized how the Tudors were restoring the throne to its earliest line: that of the Brutus. It was an omen of what was to come.